Review: Netflix's unhinged road rage drama 'Beef' is the best show to represent 2023
They say misery loves company. So, apparently, does anger.
In Netflix's delightfully deviant new series "Beef," two strangers are drawn into an escalating feud after road rage turns into forever rage. Their wrath knows no bounds. Their middle fingers are forever pointed up. And nothing will deter them.
"Beef" (now streaming, ★★★★ out of four) is magnificent and maniacal, an utterly unique story that spins the everyday into the epic. Anchored by outstanding performances by Steven Yeun and Ali Wong as the feuding drivers who gleefully trash their own lives in pursuit of revenge, "Beef" is depraved without being heartless. The dark comedy is exceedingly adept at capturing the anxiety- and anger-inducing world that we live in, a study of 21st-century emotional extremes. And it's delicious to consume.
Created by Lee Sung Jin ("Dave") and inspired by his own (much milder) road rage, “Beef” follows Danny (Yeun) and Amy (Wong), two strangers who, as the title suggests, have a beef with one another. Danny is a struggling contractor under the sway of his criminally irresponsible cousin, trying to scrape enough cash to support his lackadaisical brother and bring his parents back from South Korea. Amy is an entrepreneur, wife and mother who is so terrified of losing what she’s built that she lives in a constant state of fight or flight.
When Amy cuts off Danny in a parking lot of a big-box store, what could have been a nonevent turns into a high-speed car chase with a side of property damage. Danny can’t let the grievance go and tracks Amy down for payback. The two suddenly find themselves enmeshed in a full-on war that escalates from urine-based pranks to serious criminal activity. And neither seems to care much about any casualties they leave along the way, in their opponent’s life or even among their own friends and family.
"Beef" is well-written, darkly comedic and sharply edited, but by far the biggest draw is the two main actors. Yeun and Wong are so fantastic, they make every scene of the series riveting. Each disappears so completely into their character and manages to create some sympathy and likability, even as they devolve into ever more deranged acts of vengeance and bravado.
The fury that Amy and Danny unleash upon each other is toxic and outrageous, but it is also relatable to an extreme. Both try to live the best lives they can, while fighting systems they see as oppressive. For Danny, that's everything – the banks, his customers, his family, his own limitations – that keeps him from the success he believes he deserves. For Amy, it's the corporate ladder she's worked so hard to climb, and at times the institution of marriage itself, as she struggles to communicate with a husband (Joseph Lee) who doesn't understand her, not even a little.
The best stories find universals in their specificities, and it's hard not to empathize with Danny and Amy's hopelessness and indignation. Take a look at the headlines on any given day, and there is so much to be angry about. Amy and Danny's beef may be petty, but all that caged rage had to go somewhere, and the two are so on edge that random rudeness is enough to open their loosely sealed cans of worms. Any one of us could snap in the same way, as beaten down as we are by the indignities of modern life.
And that's the secret ingredient in the "Beef" recipe: Not just the rage of its fictional characters but of everyone traipsing through life. We all have beefs; most of us just aren't defacing trucks or screaming at strangers.
At least not yet.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Beef' review: Netflix road rage drama perfectly encapsulates 2023
